Beliefs
by Kita Samuelle
Summary: Major Spoilers for On Borrowed Time. Michael is plagued by the memory of Nikita's last words to him, and through his worries, conviction soon sets in his heart.


Beliefs

_I don't love you anymore..._

Oh, how many times did those words have to crash in to the walls of his mind until he finally shattered? Or had he already? All night, he had done nothing but allow himself to be a slave to his brain's commands - to listen to the words over and over, as if they were a song he was desperately trying to remember for later. And while they cascaded in his mind, the words crumbling as they hit the surfaces only to regroup to do so again, he paced. He laid in bed. He went for a sweaty run around the block, running as fast and hard as he could until he felt his legs would surely collapse, trying to outrun the memory.

_It don't work. I don't love you anymore.' _Her beautiful blue eyes, always so full of hope and always searching to find something to smile about, were emotionless behind those brooding tears as she said the words. Why? _Why?_

He took a shower to wash it away. He sat under the moon to let the wind carry it away. He drank a few glasses of red wine to make his mind swim enough to drown it. Yet nothing worked. There was nothing he could do.

For the first time, Nikita's voice softened and distanced in his mind, only to be replaced by the haunting of his own.

_I won't let them do this." _He had vowed. Though now that he was reminded of this, he wondered if his previous haunting wasn't better. His own words scared him, plagued him with questions anew. Questions, as in 'what if 'they' had nothing to do with it? What if Nikita really meant that she didn't love him? Had he pushed her too hard? Finally expected too much? What if something had snapped inside, and her love for him was the first to go?'

Or perhaps it was Madeline and Operations? If it was them, if they had threatened her beyond death, made her fear great enough, would he be capable of fixing it? Would he be able to, while keeping both of them alive? What if this was out of his reach? If this was one thing that was unfixable to him? Yet, even as he knew this might be the case, he'd rather this - to have her words induced by something 'they' had done, rather than it come straight from only Nikita. He could go to war against Madeline and Operations, Section and anyone else he had to, to get his Nikita back in his arms, but there was nothing he could do if she had decided this all on her own.

_His Nikita_... since when had he referred to her as his subconsciously? When had that started? Perhaps the first time he held her in his arms under his own conditions, and she so willingly melted in to his embrace? Or when she developed a smile just for him? A smile that extended from her lips, to her colored cheeks, in to her eyes and radiating through her body? Maybe when he started to notice that she was grateful for his presence in the room, instead of her heart filling with dread? When she felt utterly safe just standing next to him? It didn't really matter when. Just the knowledge that she was his was enough. But now he wasn't so sure that she was. And he wondered if he could bare with that.

His Nikita...could she really not love him anymore? Given up on him? She had done so before when he turned from her or let her down. She had turned to others - Gray...Jurgen...perhaps she was comfortable in her own skin now to confide within herself? Did she not need him anymore? Had he put sterness in his secretly loving gaze one too many times? Turned the cold shoulder too much, that the coldness has now gripped her heart? Did his cool manner, the manner that brushed her off and acted like he didn't need her or like she was a nuisance finally seep in to her veins, telling her mind that he didn't really love her like she so deserved in every way?

Had he done something wrong? Oh, with every other woman it was easy! He was trained in the field of love - one of the best Valentine Ops that Section had. Every woman he wanted to make them think he was madly in love with him, and make them fall for him, had been nothing beyond terribly easy and simple. But with Nikita...his heart had run away with his mind and skills. He had lost his head when he fell in love, and everything he had ever learned in romancing a woman had vanished. He had been reduced to a young, vulnerable boy again, a feeling that was unbearable to him. So he shut her out, hoping either his mind would soon return or his feelings for his material would leave with it. Neither had ever happened. Not when he found himself staring in to her clear blue eyes. Not when she held him in her arms. Not when his chest filled with more love than he had ever known, just being in the same room with her. Or the great sense of pride when she had done something, anything, successfully. Because that was his Nikita - succeeding always, even if she broke every law and book in Section to do it.

Yes, he had loved her for so long. Long enough to not remember when it could have possibly started. This wasn't what was making his heart painfully wither away, making him hunch over on his sofa, clenching at his shirt above it to make it stop. Had she ever really been sure of his love for her? So many times he had come to her, making her get drunk off of him, only for her heart to die soon after to find out that he had only done so under orders. What if she thought this was a series of missions, tests...orders? Of course she knew they had a bond, that he was very fond of her...but did she ever know the extent?

Had he tried hard enough?

He never took the time out to show her little things in every day life, no matter where they were, to make her know his great intensity of his love for her and only her. Why had he never taken the time out of his schedule to do so?

Even during training, he knew her so well. Knew her every emotion, even when she was doing her absolute best to shield it from him. He knew, but he never acted. Never tried to make her feel better. Never scooped her up in his arms and held her until the stress and the ache of Section left her body, until her tears ceased to flow.

He held back a sad grin as he thought back to his early days after his own training in Section. Everyone would say how good looking he was, but he never talked. A man of very few forced words, they'd call him. What could he say? This was true. It was always true since he was put in to prison. His socializing skills took a hard landing, and never risen back from their earthed grave, buried to low, under the heavy weight of all that ailed him. His sister. His parents. His friends, Section, Simone, Elena and Adam...it was all too much. Something had to go, and talking had been it, unvolutary as it was. Therefore, now he was left to wonder if he ever told her how much he loved her. How happy she made him. How thrilled he was to call her his. His Nikita...how perfect that always sounded as it rolled in his mind. He tried to remember if he ever really did tell her, but that brain of his that had been working more than overtime, pulled a blank of this one, making him feel worse.

He bit the inside of his lower lip hard. Instead of memories springing of his sweet talks that he would tell her, it sprang upon him some entirely different ones. He remembered his bitter words when he'd turn her away, pushing her back in place for the sake of Section. He put her second to Section many, countless times, always knowing that she never did so. That she was so easily willing to abandon any kind of mission for him. Until very recently, it was rare that he would show her that she wasn't second to Section. That she was first in his heart, and always would remain.

His mind reeled, ready to go insane, screaming at him, his throbbing heart echoing the words of his memories. He wanted to run to her, burst open her door, take her in his arms and beg for her to tell him that her sweet, wonderful love for him hadn't gone yet. He'd declare his own, right in front of the cameras that spied her home. To say that he didn't care what Section knew, because what else did he have to lose if Nikita was no longer his own?

Never before has he ever had such an urge to get down on his knees in front of a beloved and beg for another chance, to beg to let her give him a second chance at loving and satisfying her. To tell her that he was madly in love, and that never for one moment did his mind ever leave her. That everything that made him up was solely hers and hers alone.

Yet Michael had been this way for a long time, and thinking of these things and really doing them were two very different things to a man as hard as he. But a solid decision was made right there, as he now stood in the middle of the room, a glass of wine, precauciously balanced in his quivering hand. He would protect her from the evil that was Section. He'd keep that vow he spoke outside her door, not caring that her nosy neighbor Mick was standing right outside his own door. He wouldn't let Section do this. And he'd get Nikita back.

The words of his old friend came to echo in the back of his mind.

_You once said that a person can define themselves by what they are willing to die for. I will die for a belief. You will die because you have none! _

As much as he refused to believe this at the time, he did now. He hadn't had anything he was willing to die for, albeit his son. He had no beliefs to make his heart strong and fearless. But he did now. He may of lost Adam, his beloved son, but he had Nikita to defend and to die for, if that's what it would take. And he had their love to believe in to accompany him to his grave.

"I won't let them do this..."A vow, a promise, a strong conviction...and a belief that would soon be proven in to a fact.


End file.
